


Unfriendly neighbor spider-man

by xweapon



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, M/M, Oneshot, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xweapon/pseuds/xweapon
Summary: He had signed the contract for a whole year of apartment rent settlement, finished moving in, and rearranged all of the furniture by himself. He did all that, just to find out he shared the floor with the most annoying and inconsiderate blockhead that he could’ve possibly encountered in the city. And this was New York he was talking about, there were plenty people to choose from.Peter would’ve liked to say it had been gradual, subtle. But instead, it had been a nightmare from the very first second.





	Unfriendly neighbor spider-man

**Author's Note:**

> I need to thank [DWW](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWrittenWords) for beta-ing the first part of this fic. Any mistakes are still my own, my English can be a struggle to correct, I'm just doing my best here ( ³⌓³)  
> It gets kinda nsfw-ish somewhere along the middle, but nothing explicit. Remember that it's pre-slash!!

To say that Peter was mad was an understatement- he was pissed. Livid.

He had moved into a new beautiful and spacious apartment after years of hard work, ascending through the pre-established ladder of capitalism that had made him hop from underpaid photographer to Stark industries minion, the head of the industry unaware he was his boss both as a civil worker and an Avenger. Sometimes Peter crossed paths with Tony in the elevator and had no idea how to behave. What did others do? Did they say hi? Did they ask for an autograph or stare nervously at the floor? It was hard not to second guess every single movement when Stark was both smart and creative enough to pick up on any mistake Peter could make that’d give away his identity. One time Captain America had walked into the Stark building and asked for directions and the only one able to talk had been Peter, realizing after twenty seconds of silence had gone by that the rest of the office had frozen in place, staring at him funny.

“That… that was Captain America.” A co-worker brought up what everyone was thinking, his voice straining at the mere mention of the walking patriotic symbol. A patriotic symbol to whom Peter had spoken to without pause, barely looking up, already used to replying to Cap as often as he replied to a cashier at a supermarket.

Thankfully, he had been fast to make up an excuse.

“No way, that can’t be him. That was him?” Gasping dramatically, he rubbed his closed eyes for good measure. “The real Captain America?! Oh no… I didn’t even salute, mistook him for someone else, too concentrated on righting these papers in an even pile.”

And everyone had laughed at dorky Peter.

So, yes. He had finally found a job that got him enough money for a decent apartment, no matter how compromising it was and how hard it had been to finish the degree that had landed him said job while spending his nights dressing up as a spider like a kid in a never-ending Halloween event. He had signed the contract for a whole year of apartment rent settlement, finished moving in, and rearranged all of the furniture by himself. He did all that, just to find out he shared the floor with the most annoying and inconsiderate blockhead that he could’ve possibly encountered in the city. And this was New York he was talking about, there were plenty people to choose from.

Peter would’ve liked to say it had been gradual, subtle. But instead, it had been a nightmare from the very first second.

 

* * *

 

Peter set a mat by his door, a small old thing that his aunt May had knitted for him, looked at it proudly before closing the door behind himself. There was nothing else in the hallway, just the lights, the door bells, a small window and three doors: one was the elevator’s, another was his apartment’s, the last one was his neighbor’s. It looked sad, so the mat complemented it, added something other than gypsum and metal to the place- nobody would mind.

He went to bed, woke up, ate, readied himself for work, and opened the door. As soon as he set foot in the hallway, a squishy sound traveled all the way up from the sole of his shoes to his ears. He looked down slowly, widening his eyes at the mat, unsure if the word mat was still suitable. It was bent, frayed, and wet with mud. Comparable to a cloth that had been given to the Hulk to blow his nose with.

“What-the…” Peter knitted his brows, following the trail of mud. It went from the elevator to the mat, then from the mat to the neighbor’s door.

It was just as offensive as it was impressive, really. The neighbor had managed to make it seem as if the mat had been dipped in wet dirt like a strawberry in fondue. For one second Peter actually debated whether it was possible for his neighbor to have taken the thing all the way to a park, thrown it in a lake, stepped on it several times with the force of an elephant, and brought it all the way back where it belonged, carefully setting it down as if nothing had happened.

He was angry, but most of all he was confused. Was this even normal? Did it… did it happen? If he searched the internet for “my neighbor seems to have used my front door rug to dry a pig after a rainy day” would he find any result?

He looked at the neighbor’s door, then back at the mat, then back at the door. He had to go to work, there was just no time to knock on the door and demand an explanation or an apology. So, he got a piece of paper out of his bag, scribbled on it: “Please be more careful next time, you destroyed my door mat. You were free to use it but you didn’t have to go and wreck it like that. I’m new here but I come in peace! – Your neighbor“ He slipped the message under the neighbor’s door and left.

It was a long day at Stark Industries- he was assigned to a job in the tech lab and his clothes had set on fire twice. Twice. They had a sign on the lab wall which read “Employee of the Month (Fire Hazards Edition)” and Peter was usually tied with Tony, who appeared in the lab once in awhile when Miss Potts forced him inside the building and he wasn’t in the mood for signing papers or going to meetings. It seemed like this month was going to be Peter’s. By the end of the year, whomever had been elected –employee of the month- the most, would gain a small trophy of a person set on fire and a robot putting it off with a fire extinguisher. Never let it be said that Stark Industries didn’t have a sense of humor.

As one would imagine, setting oneself on fire was not incentive for a good mood, and by the time he was back at his apartment his feet were dragging like two blocks of lead. He sighed at the mat by his door, still muddy and torn, pushed his key into the door keyhole, and made his way inside to find that a note had been shoved under the entry. Unfolding it carefully, the first thing he noticed was the artistic drawing of what seemed to be a very angry man. It was done with crayons and the head of an arrow pointed towards the doodle, the back of the arrow leading to the sentence “This is u”. That was it. Literally- that was it. Peter turned the paper from right to left, put it under direct light, but there was nothing else written on it. No explanation, no apology. What was left of the mat was still as wrecked and the whole hallway was ready to hold a mud fight in it, but. That. Was. IT.

So, Peter sighed, rubbing his whole face with his hand, and chose –for his own sanity- to let it go. He got the memo- he wasn’t going to hold a grudge against his neighbor so soon. Whomever lived next door liked the hallway empty of decorations and was very aggressive when getting their point across. That was it. Peter understood. Well, he didn’t but he knew people like that, it didn’t necessarily mean his neighbor was shitty, maybe they… they were going through a hard moment and needed to express their rage by dedicated cloth annihilation and responding to complaints with a fatuity only a ten year old kid would achieve. No big deal. It was an isolated incident for sure.

 

* * *

 

The spider sense was usually cool, Peter had no idea how it worked and didn’t really want to find out. But, overall, a tingling sensation that warned you of nearby dangers? Sounds useful. It even operated as a sensor- the greater or closer the danger was, the stronger he felt it; he could perceive it as a wave of electricity that made his hair stand up like static or as a strong pang in his head that pushed his body to get out of the way fast- the same way one would do when getting poked by a sharp needle. He could count with the fingers on one hand the amount of times the spider sense had been a vulnerability or a bother, unlike his ability to stick to everything and in return have everything stick to him, which had many ways of being inconvenient. However, a danger detector was not a blessing when you had the neighbor Peter did.

Peter had no idea what the hell the neighbor did all day, but whenever both him and Peter were in the building at the same time he could feel the constant headache that peril would cause. It was like the continuous buzzing of a fly right next to his ear- if the fly had a megaphone. The worst part? He couldn’t complain. There was simply no way to approach his neighbor about this problem. What could he say? Could you please tone it down with the dangerous stuff? It’s a long story but I can feel it through the wall.

No way.

He spent hours thinking about whatever it was that could be happening next door and whether he should take a look in case intervention was necessary, but it was hard when their only interaction had been disastrous. The last time he had been in such an endless state of distress was when a couple of kids at a fast food restaurant close to him had been playing five finger fillet with a plastic knife. This felt ten times worse- as if the person next door played with a real knife while blindfolded and pressed their hand directly against the wall that they shared.

Well, call it good luck if you will. He didn’t have to wonder for much longer.

One day he was sitting at the table eating reheated dinner alone while reading The Daily Bugle, when his head started hurting. He knew it wasn’t out of tiredness, it felt unlike a natural headache- it felt like a warning. Peter munched harder, frowning as he tried to concentrate on the newspaper, re-reading a headline for the fifth time. For some blessed seconds the sensation went away and he should’ve found it suspicious, should’ve felt alert instead of relieved, because soon he was hearing a gunshot and a crushing noise. He found himself stuck to the ceiling, the sudden shock of electricity he had sensed in the time span of milliseconds literally jump-scaring him to the roof.

“FUCK!”

That was a male voice- it came from next door and Peter could hear it as clearly as if there was no wall in between them. Why? Well, because there was a hole in the wall. A perfect, bullet-shaped hole.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Peter shouted. Unsure of what was happening and not knowing who he was talking to, he refrained from jumping back to the floor. Looking at the far point on the wall, he could see a finger popping from the new “decorative” hole that had been violently carved through. The finger moved in circles and only helped in making more pieces of cracked wall fall to the floor, which was already covered in white dust from the explosion. The bullet had pierced through the wall and embedded on the small trophy he had gained last year for his consecutive state as employee of the month (fire hazards edition). The thing had been about three meters away from the wall, lying on the coffee table, and now it lay in the furthest wall, deformed by the momentum of the bullet. The tiny robot in the trophy was intact, the person however? It had seen better days, and this was a tiny representation of a person that had been set on fire, those were low standards for ‘better days’.

“Well. That was a bullet.”  The voice stated, tone condescending as if that had been the obvious answer Peter had needed.

“NO. SHIT. Why is there a bullet hole in my wall?!” Peter moved across the ceiling, got closer to the place where the bullet had pierced through but remained high enough not to be seen if whomever was on the other side peeked through it.

“Because a bullet went through it.”

Peter wanted to commit murder, heroism be damned. He gritted his teeth. At least he was sure now that this was his neighbor he was talking to and not someone that had broken into the apartment next door- it definitely was the same person that had drawn him an angry stickman, which was a very good representation of how he was feeling at the moment.

“What I mean is.” he paused to breathe, trying to calm himself. It didn’t work. “WHY DID YOU SHOOT THE WALL?”

“Oh, that.” the neighbor put his index finger back through the hole and pointed upwards as best as he could, which managed to be at least thirty degrees off. “I was playing five finger fillet.”

Peter sat crouched on the ceiling on the blind side of the hole and rubbed his temples with his fingers, drawing circles and trying to massage his headache away. This time it wasn’t his spider sense that had caused it, it was clearly the whole situation. “With a gun. You were playing five finger fillet with a GUN?” Peter had gone for five finger fillet as a joke but the universe had a very cruel sense of humor and decided that this once was the moment to prove Peter right with something, when being wrong would’ve been the best option for his sanity.

“In my defense I grabbed the wrong gun. I couldn’t see with the blindfold.”

Fuck the universe. The whole universe. Fuck it.

Just- was this guy serious? Peter wouldn’t put it past him to have been playing the stupid game blindfolded, after all the man was insane enough to be shooting inside the building. Peter had evidence, it was a circular hole that the asshole neighbor had added to his wall. He rubbed his temples harder. “Why do you even have enough guns for that to happen?!”

“It’s my right. The- eh… second anemone.”

“Second amendment?” Seriously? Peter got off the ceiling with a soft thump, doing a flip until he landed with his feet on the floor like a cat.

The man crooked and extended his index finger repeatedly in approval. “That!”

“You didn’t even know how to pronounce it!” It was the middle of the night and he was having a conversation with his neighbor through a bullet hole on the wall, yet the neighbor managed to find the right words to make the situation even more ridiculous.

“What would I know- I’m Canadian.”

“You’re Canadian?!”

“You know, I feel like we’ve had this very same discussion in another story by the very same author. It’s like a Deja-vu.” Peter’s neighbor pulled his finger back off from the wall in a swift movement that had more pieces falling off from it. “Why is it so surprising? Never talked to a Canadian through a bullet hole before?”

“I’m going to sleep. I just- I need to sleep this away and wake up to find it was all a dream. My neighbor is actually decent and the apartment wall is intact.” Peter sighed and his shoulders sagged like a deflating balloon. He didn’t have the energy he needed to care, the whole situation seemed so far away from normalcy that he felt extracted from it. “Don’t… Don’t use guns inside the building just… I can’t believe you need someone to tell you this, but don’t play five finger fillet blindfolded with a gun!”

For a few seconds there was silence and Peter was actually worried he had hurt the neighbor’s feeling by shouting at him. Him. Peter. Who had almost been shot while eating microwaved pasta from the past Wednesday. Then a piece of paper slid through the bullet hole on the wall. He leant down to pick it up, expecting some sort of stupid apology written on it, instead there was a drawing of an even angrier stickman than before, an arrow pointed towards it and the words “I drew u again.”

Someone was going to die.

Peter had rented the apartment for a whole year and if the neighbor was going to be the same one during his whole stay then one of them was going to die. Either Peter of a stroke or the neighbor due to murder.

 

* * *

 

 

He forgot about the bullet hole. Peter kept postponing the wall repair and it became such a regular sight that if anyone asked what was off about the apartment the hole on the wall wouldn’t even make it to the first ten replies he’d give. He remembered he couldn’t walk around wearing his spider-man suit around the general area of the living room but he applied the rule automatically, like a ritual to whose purpose had been long forgotten, and he never questioned why exactly it was that he had that practice in the first place. It wasn’t hard to guess he would eventually be reminded of it because, as it tended to happen when it came to Peter and his luck, he would fuck up.

It happened two weeks after the bullet accident. He had finished showering and reached out over the curtain to only grasp air where the towel should have been. It wasn’t something out of the ordinary- he was clumsy and hurried too much to notice details like grabbing a towel before getting in the shower, it was the reason why half of his mistakes took place. So he just shook his head to get the most of the water off his hair like a dog and waited a couple of minutes to naturally dry enough and get out of the bathroom without making a mess all over the place, he even sang a little in the meantime. Eventually he deemed himself worthy of accessing the hallway, and his bare and still wet feet began noisily carrying him towards his bedroom. It was then that his cellphone started ringing. Where was his cellphone? Well, predictably, it was on the living room table, exactly in front of the bullet hole.

Confident on his privacy after checking that the curtains were closed, he hurried towards the sound of his phone, checked who was calling him and picked up when he read it was MJ. Had he been paying any attention he would have noticed the sharp intake of breath and the dull thud on the wall, as if somebody had hit their head against it, when Peter automatically lifted his feet to put them on the coffee table after sitting on the couch. He wasn’t one to stride naked in his apartment but years of wearing skin-tight spandex had got him used to his own body shape to the point he could move carelessly when nude. And all right, the amount of exercise he did as a superhero and his enhancements after the spider bite didn’t exactly leave him with a body that the media would describe as repelling, but Peter had his fair share of low self-esteem after the nightmare that high school had been for him. Feeling satisfied with the way he looked felt like an achievement and it showed in the set of his shoulders that he was going to brag about it to his… empty apartment. That’s what happened when you didn’t get out to know people- you ended up wasting sensuality on furniture; which was precisely what MJ was scolding him about on the phone.

“I’m sorry, yeah. I know I don’t get out much but either I don’t have the time or I don’t have the energy, you know how it is…” He held the phone in between his cheek and his shoulder to stretch his arms above his head. He heard the neighbor curse, it had been suspiciously free of noises and mishaps recently so it was a surprise and an annoyance to realize the man was still there.

MJ suggested they go out together as she did plenty of times. She was running out of patience and Peter was scared that one day she would barrel through the door and pull him outside by the hem of his shirt. “Peter. Listen, you can’t see it, but my face is full of disappointment right now. Last time I saw you, you lived elsewhere! I don’t even know how your new apartment looks like! And I’m not going to pressure you into starting something with someone if you don’t feel like, but even if you don’t go out with someone could you at least… go out? You hear how that sounds? It sounds depressing, I just asked you to please go out alone. You can’t see it, but now my face is full of sadness and pity. I can send you a picture if you want.”

Peter chuckled, MJ was right. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It has been a while since I went out on a date but nobody at work is my type and…”

“Are dudes your type?”

“Well, some, but at… work…” Slowly, Peter stopped talking. That had not been MJ. He turned around, checking where the voice had come from. When he saw the bullet hole the events that had costed him the well-being of the wall flashed back in front of his eyes. He checked himself over to verify that he was indeed naked and then looked back at the hole in the wall that was directed at the place where he sat. “Listen, I’ll call you back, promise.”

Peter hung up and carefully placed the cell phone near him on the couch, extracting his feet from the coffee table. Could it… Could it be? The neighbor was definitely eavesdropping but could the asshole be peeping too? Peter stretched his back and gradually turned the top half of his body around until he was facing the wall, he pressed his mouth closed with so much strength his teeth hurt. And then lifted up his middle finger.

“Woah, rude!”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Peter scrambled on the couch, reaching for a cushion that lay on top of it and pressing it against himself, covering the most vital parts.  “What the fuck!! What kind of creep are you?! What do you think you’re doing?!!”

“Well, you went ahead and left the hole uncovered! I thought it was an invitation to share how you lived, like we were getting along better! But now you give me the middle finger, I’m starting to feel unwelcomed.”

Peter got up from the couch while holding the cushion one handed, the other hand he used to childishly hit the wall as soon as he got close enough to do so. “This is… This is beyond me! How can you be such a jackass?!” He tried putting a napkin inside the hole, but his neighbor simply pulled from the other side until the hole was no longer covered and the napkin was on his side, saying ta-duhh! afterwards, as if he had just performed a magic trick. So what was the best idea Peter had? To put another napkin further from the other side. Soaked in superglue.

In hindsight, it was a douche-move, it could have gone terribly wrong, but his patience was running thin and he was known for turning less heroic when such thing happened. Thankfully, when the man plucked his finger inside the hole and got it stuck in between the wall, the napkin falling to the floor in shreds after receiving too much pressure to keep itself glued in place, he had been wearing gloves. Peter could see the red fabric poking from the hole, similar to the color on his spider-man suit.

“Aww, man. Those were new gloves.”

The neighbor sounded genuinely offended. As if Peter was the one that was doing morally questionable things. Which- fine, supergluing the man’s finger to the wall was morally questionable, but the man had done something morally questionable first! So Peter swallowed all of the regret and nodded to himself, content with how the hole was now covered, though not ideally… in fact it looked horrible- as if the hole had not been visually offensive enough before, now it had a red piece of spandex and white shreds of napkin coming out of it. It was going to be even tougher to get it fixed now.  “That’s what you get for being a pervert!” Damn it. Peter wanted to cry, every single line that dropped from his mouth was worse than the last one, his neighbor was so childish that it was contagious, eventually you had to lower yourself to his level or else you’d go insane. And what kind of person wore red gloves in the comfort of their own apartment? Just who was this guy and why was he so freaking weird?

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, the insulation that the wall provided was gone as well and while nobody could peep through the hole again, sound travelled just fine. Peter had not worried so far, he wasn’t about to start screaming his secrets out loud. After the events that had transpired he focused too much on keeping his own privacy and didn’t consider how it went both ways until the evidence was loud and clear.

It was a weekend in the afternoon and Peter had been napping, face smashed against the couch and legs dangling off the edge of it, smiling in his sleep because he was finally getting the rest he deserved. He awoke with a start when he heard screaming, grabbing a pillow on instinct as if he could use it as a weapon. He scrambled to an upward position so fast he ended up with his legs tangled and almost fell face first to the floor.  For a second he thought it was residue from a bad dream, but then he heard it again. Peter found himself red faced and frozen in place, pillow still in hand, the grip on it getting tighter as he realized they were moans.

What now?

The moans were from a male voice and Peter could bet all of his money they were the neighbor’s, raspy and deep one moment, then whiney and high pitched the next- the combination was the sweetest and hottest thing Peter had ever heard. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath because that was wrong. He had to remember this was his neighbor, the same rude asshole that had been making Peter’s life miserable by continuously proving to be more annoying each day that went by.

“Yeah! You like that?” And that would be, apparently, a woman’s voice. “Yes you do! You take it all in like a good boy!”

Just what kind of kinky shit was going on next door?

Peter pressed the pillow against his face, twisting it until it was poorly covering his ears as well because he didn’t want to hear any more. It was –he checked his watch- three in the afternoon on a Saturday. Three in the afternoon on a Saturday! Who had kinky sex at three in the afternoon on a Saturday?! His neighbor, that’s who. Peter was angry, he was angry he had to tolerate an endless circle of torture since he had signed the contract that stated he had the apartment for a damn year, angry at the neighbor and angry at himself because he could feel his pants growing tighter and he wasn’t turned on thanks to the ridiculous one liners that the woman was reciting from a pre-meditated script, he was turned on because of the moans, the desperate and constant string of cries that resonated through the otherwise silent room as if he was at an opera theater and Peter had first row seats.

“You want me to go faster? Harder? Beg for it.”

The creaking noise of the bed was already making him go insane, he couldn’t wait for that wrecked voice to start begging, wouldn’t be able to survive that without hearing it again and again on a loop whenever he decided to jerk off. So he took the pillow that was in his hands and launched it at the wall with enough force for it to turn into a small projectile, the thump it made against the wall barely dulled by the cushioned nature of the object. It worked. For two seconds.

“Good to hear you decided to join us!”

Peter shuddered because it was worse. Each tremble in the voice when his neighbor said that, it was addressed to him this time, and Peter had to cough and swallow a few times before speaking because he knew for certain that his voice would be rough and uneven if he spoke without doing so. “Tone it down or rent a room.” Peter would have wished it sounded menacing, to entwine each word with rage, but instead it sounded like a plea.

The creaking of the bed didn’t cease and there was a particular strain to articulate the next time the man spoke. “Well,” And he moaned in the middle of the sentence, because apparently Peter intruding wasn’t enough of a reason for the woman to stop. “if you hadn’t superglued the glory hole shut we would have been able to make it a three-way.”

This was his life now. Discussing through the wall with a man that was most likely getting pegged and unable to control how his body found the situation more interesting than his brain wished for it to be. There was a certain familiarity to the neighbor’s voice as well and that had been bothering Peter ever since he had heard it- but he couldn’t place it, he just knew that it sounded like somebody and finding it arousing was nerve-wracking, like finding a frying pan inside the bathroom cabinet. It just didn’t go there.

“I charge more for threesomes.”

Peter gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt, of course it was a sex worker, the guy was too annoying to charm the pants off anybody without money involved. “No need.” Where had he left his headphones? He had always been too tightfisted to buy noise cancelling ones but he was definitely considering investing in them now. He could leave. Pack his laptop, a bottle of water and expel himself from his own apartment for the whole afternoon.

“I’ll strike you a deal. If you want me to stop, I want you to moan back.” There was a playfulness in the tone the man said his words with that made it obvious he had a wicked smile plastered on his face.

“That’s ridiculous, I won’t-” He didn’t get to finish his sentence, as the neighbor let out a loud and drawn out moan that had Peter breathing in sharply because fuck. If the noises from before were pornographic they were on a whole other level now, sweet coated and aimed in his direction, they traveled through his ears like dense honey, condensing in his gut until his body shook from the bottom to the top of his spine. And they kept getting worse, the bed creaking softly alongside as if Peter needed more noises to reconstruct the image in his head. He fidgeted and walked in circles, searching for the apartment’s key in the same spots over and over as if he couldn’t concentrate enough to remember where he had checked. His cheeks were burning so much that he didn’t need a mirror to know he was red all over and his breathing was so harsh he had to cover his mouth and nose with the back of his hand to muffle himself before it could be heard from next door or else it would be impossible to deny the whole situation had caught up with him and his lower body.

“Fuck it feels good. It feels so good. I could come just like this, untouched,” The description was deliberate, the man knew what he was doing and the way he punctuated each word- the melody to his sentences, proved how good he was at this. The woman had sounded dull and predictable when she had attempted to do the same, probably because it was literally just part of her job, but with a very similar script the neighbor did wonders. “-with you inside me.” He purred the words like they meant something to him, an intensity that went beyond lust and left Peter aching to have it for himself.

That did it.

That had Peter moaning back. It escaped through his lips as he bit hard on his own finger, trying to keep it back with no success, exasperation half to blame for his poor impulse control. Straightaway, the creaking of the bed stopped altogether and there was a banging against the wall, as if the neighbor had hit it with the palm of his hand twice, breathing hard and whimpering softly- maybe someone else wouldn’t have caught it so clearly but Peter could feel every movement and sound vibrating all the way to where he stood, clinging to the keys he had finally found next to the cushion he had thrown minutes before. Each hair on his body stood up as if electrified. He needed to get out before his brain short-circuited for long enough to find his own hand traitorously slipping inside his pants- it already lay too close for comfort by the waistband, fingers twitching because he could almost visualize how his neighbor must have been looking like, the way he had probably closed his eyes and arched his back, then turned around with a satisfied expression on his face while he let his body fall on the bed like a dead weight, tired and sweaty. Peter didn’t even know how the man looked but his unconscious worked as if in a dream like state where he didn’t need to put any features to the person but he somehow knew. He knew and he could feel it being translated from blurry and almost shapeless images into sensations.

Peter didn’t stay long enough to hear what the duo next door had to say about what had happened nor to get his wallet, only the keys and a jacket long enough to cover the fact he was half hard. He just needed to go out for a walk and breathe some fresh air, find himself either a date like MJ had suggested or a new hobby that could stop him from making any rash decisions that would inevitably and undeniably become mistakes. That’s what any form of interaction with his neighbor up until then had felt like. A mistake. And Peter knew how those tended to gravitate around him.

 

* * *

 

It had been a good day. Nothing had been set on fire in the lab (at least not by him) and Spider-man had managed to apprehend five armed robbers and come out unscratched which, arachnid reflexes and all, was still impressive. So he was in a good mood as he made his way to the elevator, readying his keys and whistling some tune that had been stuck in his head ever since he heard it on a television ad.

The elevator was the neighbor meeting point. So far he had encountered a lovely old lady that seemed to have adopted him as a substitute grandchild, granting him an endless supply of homemade quince candy and bread flavored with species he couldn’t pronounce, a man that had not spoken a single word but he had been wearing a Wasp shirt so Peter had kind of connected with him spiritually anyway, and a couple that he had kindly allowed to borrow the whole elevator for themselves, getting off three floors before than he should have and taking the stairs because he couldn’t take one more second of sharing space with them while they were heatedly making out as if Peter was a flower vase and not an actual human being that didn’t want to see them re-interpret a sex scene from an HBO series right in front of him.

Any reunion they had to have because of changes of management or the rent? It was announced with a notice on the elevator. Somebody stole a plant that was decorating the entrance inside the building? The long list of curses was also added on a post-it note on the elevator. Every sort of interaction and communication in between the apartment tenants? Elevator. So Peter should’ve guessed that he was eventually going to bump into his neighbor and that there was a high chance it was going to happen in the elevator, but even if he had mentally prepared himself for that, there was no chance he could’ve guessed the amount of surprises that the encounter would bring along.

The elevator doors opened and Peter got inside, greeting as he did so and stepping to the side because there was somebody inside already. There was another floor that was used for communal storage underneath the first floor so it wasn’t strange to get in on said first floor and find someone inside the elevator that was going up as well, but what was strange was the way the man in the elevator seemed to be doing his best to hide every inch of his face with the hood of his sweatshirt- it laid too low on his forehead for it to be comfortable, evidently interfering with his field of vision enough to be incapable of looking at anything besides the floor. The person also turned his head away to the side so immediately after Peter stepped in the same space that it had to be automatic.

Peter leant forwards in order to press the button to go to his floor only to find out it had already been pressed.

Well look at that.

So this one was the thorn in his side. Thy asshole. Was that the reason the man was hiding? He had seen Peter before, had seen _too much_ of Peter before through the bullet hole on the wall, so the fucker definitely recognized him. Peter scanned him up and down with his eyes without even trying to be subtle, they were past the point of subtlety, had skipped it to go straight to rude the first damn week.

The neighbor was tall and built like a tank, maybe if he stepped next to a regular fridge he’d be as wide so Peter was hyper aware of the place where their elbows were meeting, because even if the man was hunched and trying to occupy less space than the amount of volume he had would allow him to, he made the space feel crowded. The outline of his muscles was embraced by the bright red hoodie and with his arms bent to reach for the pockets it looked as if the fabric was struggling not to tear itself apart as it stretched. What was the word for second hand uncomfortableness? Because that couldn’t possibly allow his blood to flow freely. As if it weren’t enough, when Peter looked closer at what little he could make out of the man’s hands peeking from the pockets, he was wearing gloves. Because of course he was. He had been wearing them inside his own apartment so why not outside as well?

They were arriving to their floor and Peter couldn’t just leave it. He danced around the neighbor trying to meet his eyes and the man kept turning his face around no matter how much Peter bent or stretched his back, looking somehow like an owl and a chicken playing peekaboo. Peter cheated. Well, not really, nobody ever said he couldn’t use his arachnid reflexes for mundane things if it meant Peter got things done. So yes, he moved a little faster and with more flexibility than humanly possible just to win this one round of childish confrontation with his neighbor- it wasn’t as if somebody else was watching.

However, as soon as he managed to peek under the hood he froze in place, eyes widening in surprise. He should’ve guessed nobody would take that nicely, especially someone as self-conscious as the man he was looking at, who turned his face once again after something like hurt flashed through his eyes.

“What’s the matter, didn’t like what you saw?”

The man’s voice was deep and harsh, it resonated through the walls of the elevator surrounding Peter with a tone of bitter accusation, but Peter ignored it, barely registered it. Never mind that. When he spoke, his voice cracked, high pitched and hysterical.

“Deadpool?”

And just like that, all of the training from his office when he crossed paths with Tony Stark and Peter had to pretend he barely knew him vanished. In his defense, it was expected to see Stark inside Stark industries, unlike Deadpool in the elevators of his own apartment building. Thankfully Deadpool wasn’t the kind of man to hide his identity and, while uncommon, some people knew the way the mercenary looked under his mask and could recognize him when his face was three inches away. After all Wade Wilson had appeared plenty of times in the news and his face was one hard to forget.

That seemed to take the edge off, since Deadpool adjusted his posture to meet Peter’s eyes, registering Peter’s reaction as bewilderment instead of the disgust his paranoia had probably made him see. “Want an autograph?” He smiled like the chesire cat, all teeth and cockiness, and suddenly Peter was the one turning his face to the side and avoiding eye contact.

Holy fuck. This meant that Peter had got turned on by hearing Deadpool moaning. It meant the person who had seen him naked had been Deadpool. All _Deadpool_. Every interaction with his neighbor flashed in front of his eyes like a nightmare and it suddenly made sense. It made sense because the only other person Peter knew that wore red gloves, had several guns to shoot the wall with, and was as much as of an air head as his neighbor had proved to be, was Deadpool. And with Peter’s luck, it had to be him.

Wade was standing still but Peter still felt cornered. The elevator doors had opened a while ago and Wade had reached to lift the stop switch so they didn’t close again, but otherwise they didn’t move. Wade was waiting for a reaction and Peter was waiting for his brain to work.

“You’re my neighbor.” Peter stated the facts as if saying them out loud would undo the curse that had condemned him to have Wade living next door.

“No autograph, then? What about my phone number? My address?”

Peter made a huge mistake by chortling at that because, just like a vampire that had been invited in, Wade felt welcomed to leave all caution behind. The way the man set becoming friends with Peter as a new objective in his life was as visible as in a Sims play-through.

“He looks cute when he laughs.”

Oh. Right. No filter and clear lack of sanity. Definitely Deadpool.

Peter sniffed and shook his head, slowly getting away from the elevator and searching for his keys. He knew that there were two possible outcomes to this encounter: either Wade would tone it down because he seemed to like him, or he would exponentially intensify his efforts to be annoying in order to get Peter’s attention.

“Wait, um…” Wade stood beside him, lowering his hood with slightly shaking hands, as if uncovering too much of himself would result in Peter screaming. But Peter didn’t scream, he just patiently turned around and inclined his head in a gesture for Wade to keep going, unable to be heartless enough to do anything else. “We might have started off with the wrong foot. But you… what’s your name?”

“Peter.”

“Peter.” Deadpool tested how the name felt on his tongue and smiled, he had stepped out of the elevator and turned the stop switch once again so they stood in the small hallway along with the destroyed rug that had been a forewarning of how their interactions would be like. “You’re the first person in a while to not only tolerate me daily but to banter back and well, it might sound strange but you’ve kept me distracted and I actually enjoyed it. It was fun.”

Peter blinked at that. It was sad, he knew Wade was not for everyone, he could be too much- but it was easy to read in between each line of the man’s confession and understand he didn’t do it on purpose, that it affected him as well. It was also hard to admit but undeniable that some of that truth applied to Peter as well; Wade had kept him distracted and had made his daily routine fun, for once he had something to tell his aunt other than how much sugar he had added to his cereal in the morning.

“What I’m trying to say is that if you would like to come over some time or need someone to play videogames with or… I don’t know, fucking bingo, whatever it is that you do. We could… you know. I mean screaming at each other through the wall is fun too but- you get me right? You just say so and I will. Just say so…”

That speech was a mess but the feeling with which it was said sent the message across. It even had Peter smiling a little, it was nice to see he managed to get Wade worked up enough to get his words as scrambled Peter’s brain was. “Alright.”

It went unsaid that he had a horrible decision-making system, especially considering he had spent the last few days wanting to _get away_ from his neighbor, not _get along with_. Wade’s speech had been poorly delivered but it had evidently softened Peter a little, he was weak against people with poor social skills because he could relate, it was understandable. And the way Wade beamed at his reply, well, he might suffer for accepting later but right then it felt like the right choice when the man smiled like that, scarred skin wrinkling around the eyes.

Wade got his keys out and opened the door to his own apartment, stepping inside and looking back at Peter who was still standing close to his own apartment door. “My name’s Wade, I’m not sure if you knew that too. I’m sorry about the rug,” Something lit Wade’s face up, something wicked. “But I don’t regret peeking through the hole on the wall to see you naked. Knock on the door if you need some sugar!”

Before Peter could reply, Wade was slamming the door shut, quickly blowing him a kiss before doing so.

It was clear which outcome the encounter had resulted in: Wade had exponentially intensified his efforts to be annoying in order to get Peter’s attention. While Peter cursed loudly enough to be heard by Wade through the door, he found himself feeling strangely enthusiastic about the whole situation. It was a challenge, and if they didn’t get thrown out of the apartment building for bothering everyone else with their bantering, then Peter was going to make sure to enjoy it as much as Wade seemed to be doing so.

 


End file.
